The top 3 startups of IBM’s Smartcamp Healthtech challenge

A startup called Oxyent Technologies emerged as the winner of the recently concluded IBM Smartcamp Challenge for healthtech startups in the country. It is a hospital-linked application and a one-stop workflow solution for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the Pediatrics Department to assimilate and disseminate child information, starting from birth up to 12 years of age.

The challenge, a part of IBM’s Global Entrepreneur program, was to identify startups in the B2B and B2C space in India who are poised to redefine the healthcare industry and solve real world problems through their technology innovations.

“IBM Smartcamps are designed and aimed at providing opportunities for startups to get mentorship and work with IBM and industry experts to scale up their business quickly, particularly by taking advantage of cognitive and cloud-based technologies. The focus of IBM Smartcamp for Health Tech initiative was to provide the startups in healthcare an opportunity to showcase their products and get inputs first-hand from various stakeholders,” said Seema Kumar, Country Manager, Ecosystem Development, IBM India & SA. “At IBM, we are committed to empowering the next generation of start-ups that develop solutions to solve the most complex problems in the country. We are bullish on the potential of the Indian startup ecosystem to make effective use of technology to rapidly transform and improve the quality of healthcare solutions in the country.”

Meanwhile, Harpreet Singh, the founder of the winning startup Oxyent Technologies, said, "Enterprise technologies like IoT, cloud computing, big data and analytics are a pillar to our solution. As a startup getting technical mentoring from IBM mentors in utilizing best practices in IoT and building on knowledge base of Watson will provide us an opportunity to be a world-class solution provider in child healthcare.”

Two other startups - UE LifeSciences and DailyRounds - were selected as the first and second runners-up of the challenge.

UE LifeSciences’ flagship product, iBreastExam is a portable, radiation-free device that can be used anywhere. The device essentially performs bilateral breast examinations and claims to provide results under five minutes. It accurately detects lesions with a sensitivity higher than 85% without causing any pain and has a low false-alarm rate of 6%.

Meanwhile, DailyRounds is a mobile app for doctors, medical schools, physician, and surgeon societies to publish clinical cases, articles, and images. The platform allows doctors to share insights about medical cases. It claims to provide a verified diagnosis within 24 hours of submission. It also functions as a medical case library for doctors to refer and discuss their cases.

The winners were chosen after multiple levels of screenings and panel rounds by the jury members. They were judged on various parameters like innovative solution, features & demos, ability to scale, team behind the product, and the market size they are addressing with their solution.

On the occasion, Jay Krishnan, CEO of T-Hub said, “We are excited to partner with Industry leaders such as IBM and Manipal Hospitals to facilitate events like the Heath Tech Smartcamp Challenge 2016. Such events will benefit startups in the ecosystem working in the area of healthcare innovation. Our mission overall is to lead sector specific collaboration between cutting edge startups and corporates looking for innovations in their domains.”

The winners will now be given access to IBM Cloud credits and can leverage the best of IBM technologies around Cognitive, Cloud, Analytics, Mobility, IoT and Infrastructure as a service. All participants will also get an opportunity to learn from IBM’s senior leadership and industry experts.

Next in line in the Smartcamp series is the Smartcamp for Smart City to be organized in New Delhi. IBM Global Entrepreneur program is accepting applications from B2B and B2C Startups less than 5 years having innovations around areas like Energy & Utility, Transportation, Sanitation, Water, Citizen Management, Safety and Surveillance. Agritech startups are also welcome. The link for applying is ibmgepindia.com/smartcity.